Heaven's Crooked Finger

by Hank Early

  “Well, technically, I think we’re cousins, but you can call me uncle.”

  “I’m Amanda,” the younger one said and took my hand. “Daddy showed us your pictures. There’s one of you holding a snake. I wish they let girls do that.”

  Burt came back in with my water. “Amanda, we’ve talked about that.”

  “Sorry, Daddy. It’s just . . .” She screwed up her face. “I want to feel that too.”

  “Women serve in other ways,” Burt said. His face was red, and I could tell he was uncomfortable with this topic.

  I turned to Baylee. She tried to smile at me but faltered. Then she looked away and said, “I’m Baylee.”

  “It’s good to meet you both,” I said. There was an awkward silence while I tried to think of something else to say and failed.

  “Here’s your water,” Burt said. “Why don’t we sit?”

  I settled into one of the recliners. Burt sat down in the other one and nodded at the girls. “Bye,” Amanda said.

  Baylee followed her out without saying anything.

  “They’re beautiful,” I said.

  Burt scratched his jaw. “Yeah, I’m real proud.”

  “Hey,” I said, looking over my shoulder to make sure both girls were indeed gone, “did I hear something about Baylee being missing recently?”

  Burt’s mouth straightened out into a thin line. “What did you say?”

  “Just something I heard. That she was gone for a while. Maybe it was just a rumor. Somebody said it was in the papers.”

  He seemed to relax a little. “It was a misunderstanding. That’s all.”

  “Oh. Okay. Well, I’m glad she’s safe. She’s got to be getting close to graduating pretty soon. Does she have plans for college?”

  He shook his head. “Baylee graduated in May. She’s going to stay home for a little bit.”

  I nodded. Higher education had been viewed with suspicion among the Holy Flame community when I was a kid. And the idea of a girl going to college back then had practically been blasphemy. Based on Burt’s reaction, I wondered if any of that had changed.

  “Well,” I said, “how is the church?”

  “The church is fine,” he said. “Never better, really. Your brother has done a fine job.”

  “It’s hard to imagine Lester as a preacher. I mean, he just doesn’t fit the type.”

  Burt nodded thoughtfully. “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, Earl, but do you really know Lester? How long has it been, after all?”

  “Thirty years.”

  “That’s a long time.”

  “Yeah, but I know him.”

  “If you say so. Either way, he’s a good man. He’s doing a good job.”

  I thought about what Amanda had said. “Does Lester handle snakes?”

  “Sure. What would the Holy Flame be without snakes?”

  “I guess that’s a fair point.”

  “Earl?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What are you doing back?”

  I hesitated, not knowing how much I wanted to reveal about my motivations. I decided to play it close to the vest. “I’m here because of Arnette Lacey. She’s dying. Pancreatic cancer.”

  “The woman who took you in?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Look, I’m not trying to poke around in your business, but there’s folks saying you’re here for more than that.”

  “What folks?”

  He shrugged. “Just folks. Some of them are saying you’re here to tear down the church.”

  “Come on, Burt. Look, I wouldn’t ever do anything like that.”

  “Why have you been hanging out with that deputy?”

  “Mary? She’s Arnette’s granddaughter. We’re just friends.” I felt myself getting irritated. As much at myself as Burt. I was supposed to be asking the questions, finding out about the church, but instead, I felt like I was on the defensive.

  “People are talking. That’s all.” He held up his hands, as if to distance himself from such rumors.

  “What people?”

  He waved it off. “I already told you, nobody special. You know how rumors go.”

  We were silent for a few minutes. I tried to think about the best way to bring up McCauley.

  “You like chili?” he asked.

  “Sounds great.”

  He made a face. “It’s Baylee’s first time cooking it.”

  “I’m sure it will be great.”

  “How’s the PI business?” he asked.

  I grimaced, remembering the cases I’d had to give to Abernathy. “On hold for the moment. I’m going to be here until Granny passes.” It was the first time I’d acknowledged this, even to myself. But it sounded right. Somehow I felt like a weight had been lifted as soon as the words came out.

  He nodded. “That’s awful good of you.” He shifted in his seat. “I’ve always wondered how that works for you atheists. I mean, why not just do your thing? Why come back here and sit by some old woman’s bed while she wastes away? My faith tells me it’s the right thing to do. But you . . . you got no faith.”

  “She took me in when nobody else would,” I said. “How could I not come back? Are you crazy?”

  He held his hands up again. “Hey, man, just asking.”

  “Daddy?” a voice called from the kitchen.

  “I think supper is ready,” he said. He stood up and extended a hand to help me to my feet. He patted me on the back. “It’s good to see you again, cousin.”

  I just stared at him.

  * * *

  The chili wasn’t very good. It wasn’t offensive or anything, it just tasted bland, and I couldn’t help but wonder if Baylee hadn’t left out the chili powder.

  Burt wondered the same thing aloud. “How much of the chili powder did you use?”

  Baylee looked at her bowl. It was untouched. She hadn’t even picked up her spoon yet. Meanwhile, Amanda was eating happily, having loaded her bowl down with sour cream, cheese, and crackers.

  “Sweetie, I asked you a question,” he said.

  “I might have forgotten it.”

  Burt dropped his spoon. “Tastes like it.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Apologize to our guest.”

  “It’s okay, Burt,” I said. “I like it fine.”

  “I’m sorry,” Baylee said, not meeting my eyes.

  “Please, don’t worry,” I said. “With a little of this hot sauce on it, it’ll be fine.”

  After dressing the chili out with hot sauce and cheese, it was better. We ate in silence.

  I feared my time was running out to ask about Bryant McCauley and Allison DeWalt. I also wanted to get his take on the rumors about Daddy. None of these questions were really ideal to ask in front of the girls, but I felt like I didn’t have any choice. I decided to go with the least innocuous one I could.

  “Since I’ve been back,” I said, “I’ve heard some crazy rumors.”

  “Yeah?” Burt said. “What kind of rumors?”

  “Stuff about Daddy, mostly.”

  Baylee stiffened. I glanced over at her. She had her spoon almost to her mouth, but she stopped and looked directly at me.

  “Your daddy?” Burt said.

  “Yeah. People say they’ve seen him. You hear any of these rumors?”

  He took a sip of his coke. “No, can’t say that I have.”

  “I just don’t know why anyone would say that kind of stuff,” I said. I glanced at Baylee again. She was slowly chewing. Her body still looked rigid, as if she were undergoing some kind of deep internal turmoil and she could not let any of it out.

  “Me neither,” Burt said. “That’s just the way people are.”

  I waited a moment. Baylee spooned up another bite, balancing it carefully on the way to her mouth.

  “What about Bryant McCauley?” I said. “Word is, he’s missing.”

  Baylee coughed. It was a half choke, half cough, and when he heard it, Burt rose from his chair.

 
“Baby,” he said, “take it easy.”

  She coughed again, covering her mouth with her fist.

  “Daddy?” Amanda said. “Is it happening?”

  “It’s fine, darling,” Burt said. He walked around the table and put his hands on Baylee, helping her to her feet.

  “We’ll be back,” he said. “She’s had an upset stomach lately and—”

  As if to punctuate his point, Baylee coughed again, except this time, she choked and gagged and spit up all the chili she’d managed to swallow earlier.

  It went all over Burt’s shirt. Amanda screamed. Burt shoved Baylee away in anger, and she collided against her chair. The collision seemed to set her off again. She gagged and leaned over her bowl, letting out a stream of yellow bile.

  “Look what you did,” Burt said. “Just look.”

  I decided I had to act. I went around the table and took Baylee by the shoulders and guided her toward the bathroom.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “You’re going to be fine.”

  I helped her kneel beside the toilet. She leaned over, readying herself for more. But it didn’t come. My hand was still on her back, and I could feel her heart thrumming through her heavy sweat shirt. She felt like a panicked rabbit, shaking.

  She wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her sweat shirt, and the sleeve rode up her arm, giving me a glimpse of her wrist.

  I recoiled at what I saw. The flesh was torn and ragged from multiple cuts. I’d seen some botched suicide attempts in my day, but this was the worst-looking wrist I’d ever seen on a survivor. She’d clearly wanted to kill herself.

  She saw me looking and quickly pulled her sleeve back down.

  Burt was coming down the hallway. “Baylee?” he called. “Honey. I’m sorry I lost my temper.”

  She met my eyes. “Help me,” she mouthed.

  Then her father was standing there, and I moved out of his way while he got her to her feet and took her upstairs.

  * * *

  Back at the table, Amanda was crying. I put a hand on her shoulder.

  “You okay?”

  She nodded.

  “Does she do this a lot?”

  Amanda looked at me sternly. “Just when she’s triggered.”

  “Triggered?”

  “Yes. Why don’t you just go back to North Carolina or wherever you’re from?”

  “Are you saying I triggered her?”

  She just looked at me. I thought I saw hate in her eyes, which might have been the most perplexing thing that had happened all night.

  I decided to try one more time with a slightly different line of attack. “Do you miss your mother?”

  She seemed surprised by the question, and for a moment, her hard face softened a little. Then she seemed to remember herself and said, “No. Mama is a backslider.”

  I nodded. “Why did Baylee try to kill herself?”

  That was when she started to scream. I tried to get her to stop, but she just screamed louder and louder. I decided it was time to make my exit.

  Jesus, I still haven’t lost my ability to totally disrupt a family, I thought as I slipped out into the warm evening. At least I had the consolation of knowing there was something already deeply wrong with this one before I ever arrived.

  34

  I decided to swing back by Granny’s because I’d missed Mary when I went by earlier. I also wanted to see how Granny was doing. Earlier, she’d seemed almost like her old self. She’d even tried to get me to miss my dinner with Burt and just hang out and drink moonshine with her.

  It had been tempting to take her up on it, but I couldn’t afford to miss the time with Burt. Which had turned out to be quite a time, hadn’t it? I had no doubt something was deeply wrong with Baylee, and as I pulled up to Granny’s house, I was lost in thought, trying to make sense of it all. Why had she tried to kill herself? Was it simply the separation of her parents? And what exactly had prompted that separation? I realized Burt had never exactly said.

  There were several lights still on at Granny’s, and I was pleased to see Mary’s Tahoe was parked out front.

  I knocked lightly on the door. Mary appeared a moment later.

  “Can I come in?” I asked.

  “Granny just went to sleep.”

  “Oh.”

  She nodded. “Sorry about that. You can try again in the morning.”

  “Mary . . .”

  “Please,” she said, “don’t make this difficult.”

  I pulled the door open. She didn’t resist. I grabbed her wrist lightly yet with some urgency. “It’s already difficult. Everything is always difficult.”

  She waited. A breeze blew up from the valley and moved her hair back off her forehead. I could feel the heat from her eyes.

  I took a deep breath and stepped away. “Something happened tonight at Burt’s.”

  “Your cousin.”

  “Right. It’s something I’m going to need your help with.”

  “Earl, I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

  “Just hear me out, okay? It’s about one of Burt’s girls.”

  She nodded. “Okay. Go on.”

  I told her about the throwing up, the trip I made with her to the bathroom, the fresh scars on her wrist, and finally her whispered plea for help.

  “And,” I said before she could react, “Rufus told me today that she’d been missing back in the spring. Do you remember that?”

  “Baylee, right? Oh, my God, I do remember it. I’m so sorry for not putting it together before now that it was the same girl.”

  “What were the circumstances?”

  “The circumstances were . . .” She hesitated, shaking her head. “They were just plain weird. The father never reported her missing. It was the school that notified us. She’d been absent for more than a week, and they’d not been able to round up a parent. I drove out to their house.” She slapped her forehead. “Why didn’t I think of it earlier?”

  I put my hand on her arm lightly. “It’s okay. No harm done. What happened at the house?”

  “I met your cousin. He said his wife was at work. I asked for the girl, and he said she’d run away. Didn’t seem very concerned about it. I asked him why, and he mentioned something about a boyfriend. He said she’d be back. She’d already called once.”

  “And apparently he was right,” I said. “How long before she came back, and did you interview her?”

  “Of course I interviewed her. It was maybe another day or two before we got word she was back in school. I felt like something suspicious was going on, so I caught her right after school that day. Interviewed her. She’s a beautiful girl.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Which can make life pretty tough if you go to the Holy Flame. What did she say?”

  “Not much. She checked out her father’s story. Said she and the boyfriend broke up. She acknowledged the mistake.”

  “Did you see her wrist?”

  “I can’t remember. I definitely didn’t notice any scars. I would remember that.”

  “Will you make a point to go by her place, just keep an eye out? She’s in bad shape.”

  “Sure. Should I call protective services?”

  I thought of Maggie then. The authorities hadn’t helped very much with her, and Hank Shaw was still the man in charge.

  “No. There’s too many people in this area I don’t trust.”

  “I’m beginning to think the same thing,” she said.

  “I need to know what was happening on the side of the road today,” I said. “Can you at least tell me that?”

  She looked around, as if there might be someone nearby listening.

  “I’m going to tell you this, and that’s the last of it,” she said. “I’m off that case anyway. So this will likely be the last thing I know about it.”

  “You’re off the case?”

  She nodded. “I’m beginning to think they assigned it to me because they wanted me to fail.”

  “But you didn’t fail, did you?”


  She shrugged and walked across the gravel drive to lean against her Tahoe. “I wouldn’t say I succeeded, but I think we found a piece today that might have been crucial for us.”

  “Us?”

  “Yeah. That would have been nice.”

  I nodded. “It would have been.”

  “Change of heart?”

  “Not really. I’ve always been a man in conflict with himself.”

  “I think I can see that.”

  “So what did they find?”

  “A hand.”

  “Say again?”

  “There was an anonymous call earlier this morning. Caller said he’d been walking in the kudzu with his dog early this morning. The dog ran off and came back with a hand. He sounded like a kid according to the deputy who took the call. Said he didn’t want to leave his name. But he did give us detailed instructions on where to find the hand. We went right to it.”

  I settled in beside her, leaning against the Tahoe.

  “It’s pretty well mutilated, and the early evidence—at least as much as I was allowed access to—seems to suggest it was removed from the body after death, maybe by scavengers. Maybe even by the dog.”

  “And the body?”

  Mary shook her head. “That’s where things get weird. Shaw didn’t seem particularly concerned about locating the body. We stood around for an hour while some deputies rummaged through the kudzu. He never brought in any dogs or search units or anything. When I asked him about it, he said for me not to worry. I suggested that the hand might very well belong to Bryant McCauley, and I was certainly going to worry about it. Then he tells me I’m not on that case anymore.”

  “He offer an explanation?”

  “Nope. Just said I should go back through the files at the office, work on something else for the time being.”

  “Do you think the hand belongs to Bryant McCauley?”

  “I honestly don’t know, but there’s definitely something that could tell us.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The hand had a tattoo on it, just below the knuckles.”

  “And?”

  “I sneaked a look at it when Shaw wasn’t paying attention. It looks like little lightning bolts with a date below it.”

  “A date?”

  “That’s what it seems to be. The numbers one–twenty-eight–sixteen. January twenty-eighth.”